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Games Workshop’s conquest continues with record profits and licensing boom

Games Workshop’s conquest continues with record profits and licensing boom

Games Workshop LON:GAW, is continuing its inexorable commercial advance, much like the unstoppable march of its much-beloved chaos spacemarine faction, The World Eaters’ conquest of the Imperium holdings.

The Nottingham-based tabletop games and miniatures retailer was recently promoted to the FTSE 100 – not bad for a company set-up in the living room of a Shepherds Bush bedsit in 1975 by a group of Dungeons & Dragons enthusiasts.

The company published its half-year report to 1st December today (14th January) and shareholders were expecting better-than-expected results, and the games retailer did not disappoint.

Games Workshop profit up 33% on back of licencing revenue

The company reported profit before taxation of GBP126.8m, up 33% year-on-year, breaking through the GBP100m barrier on the back of revenues (on a constant currency basis) of GBP305m, over GBP50m better than 2023, with a big jump in licencing revenue from GBP12m a year ago to GBP30m to end of November 2024.

Core sales in December we also said to be a record, rising by 12% and all channels said to be doing well.

Earnings per share came in at 288.9p, up 72p/share y-o-y and the company declared a dividend of 155p/share taking dividends declared so far in 2024/25 to 420p/share compared to 315p/share last year.


Cash generated from operations was up GBP15.6m to GBP132.5m reflecting additional operating profit of GBP31.6m, an increase of GBP3.1m in amortisation costs, offset by GBP20.8m working capital movements related to licensing receivables – an increase of GBP18.3m – a result of the high level of earned royalty income in the last six months.

Although selling miniature soldiers, paint kits, rulebooks and supporting media remains the core of Games Workshop’s operations, increasingly licencing the firm’s IP to computer games developers and TV and movie studios is becoming a significant part of the business.

Licence granted to Amazon for films and TV series

The company licenced two new computer games in the last six months: Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 and Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks, but the biggest coup was the licence granted to Amazon NASDAQ:AMZN to adopt Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40K universe into films and a television series. Warhammer aficionado and former Man of Steel, Henry Cavill has been retained as producer for the live action adaption and star in the series.

Although all is looking bright for Games Workshop, CEO Kevin Rountree did caution on rising costs, specifically rises in the UK to Employer’s National Insurance Contributions and the National Living Wage. Although Rountree said that the staff cost rises were unlikely to affect Games Workshop directly, he did say that it could affect third-party input costs.

Games Workshop opened trading today at 13,401p, up 38.6% over one-year with shares ranging from 9,150p to 14,500p over a 52-week period. The company’s market capitalisation is GBP4.36bn.

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